NATURAL DISASTERS IN INDIA - AN OVERVIEW PART 2 (FOR GENERAL READING)

              Phani Siddha

@ Super Sixty IAS Academy

                   Hyd

           

PART II OF THE TOPIC NATURAL DISASTERS IN INDIA - AN OVERVIEW FOR GENERAL READING ONLY

The World’s 2^nd and 4^th to 8^th deadliest epidemics also occurred in India. These included:

• Bubonic bacterial plague infectious diseases in 1907, killing 1.3 million people.
• Viral infectious diseases in parts of India (which is now Bangladesh) in 1918 killing 393,000 people.
• Bubonic bacterial plague infectious diseases in 1920, killing 2 million people.
• Cholera bacterial infectious diseases in 1920 killing, 500,000 people.
• Bubonic bacterial plague infectious diseases in 1924, killing 300,000 people.
• Viral infectious diseases in 1926, killing 423,000 people.

There have been many terrorist attacks in India. The major terrorist attacks are:

·         March 12, 1993 - A series of bomb blasts, alleged to be planted by Muslim underworld figures, rock Mumbai killing some 260 people and injuring 713.

·         February 14, 1998 - 46 persons were killed and more than 200 injured when 13 blasts ripped through Coimbatore.

·         December 24-31, 1999 – Pakistani militants hijack an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi with 189 people aboard, kill one passenger and force the release of three jailed Muslim militants in exchange.

·         October 1, 2001 - At least 21 people were killed in a suicide bomb explosion and gunfire at the assembly in Kashmir in an attack.

·         December 13, 2001 - Heavily armed Islamic militant group opened fire in Parliament complex, killing several people in an unprecedented attack on the seat of power in the world's biggest democracy.

·         January 22, 2002 - Four people were killed in an attack on the American Center, Kolkata allegedly by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants.

·         May 14, 2002 - More than 30 army men were killed in a terrorist attack on an Army camp near Jammu.

·         September 24, 2002 - 35 people were killed when 2 terrorists attacked the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

·         December 6, 2002 - Twenty-five people were injured in a bomb blast by members of the Students Islamic Movement of India at McDonalds fast food restaurant at Mumbai Central railway station. The bomb was planted in the air conditioner duct. It was suspected to be a crude bomb.

·         January 27, 2003 - At least 30 people were injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle went off throwing splinters of sharp nails outside Vile Parle railway station in Mumbai.

·         March 13, 2003 - A powerful bomb blast shattered a bogie of a local train at Mulund railway station in Mumbai during peak hours killing 11 people and injuring more than 65.

·         August 23, 2003 - Two bombings at the Gateway of India and the Mumba Devi temple in Mumbai killed 52, injured 167.

·         October 29, 2005 - 67 people were killed and 224 injured in serial bombings in major Delhi markets on Diwali (biggest festival, like Christmas) eve. A Pakistani group, Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

·         March 7, 2006 - At least 20 persons were killed and over 101 injured when two blasts rocked Varanasi. The first blast took place at the Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple, the second at the Varanasi railway station.

·         July 11, 2006 - Seven explosions ripped through crowded commuter trains and stations in Mumbai, killing at least 200 people and leaving 700 more bloodied and injured.

·         The popular tourist destination and the pink city of Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan state faced seven bomb (left in bags hanging on the bicycles) blasts on the evening of May 13, 2008. These explosions  took place within a span of 12 minutes during the peak evening 7 PM time at various locations in the down town busy religious and shopping places. An eighth bomb was found and was defused.  There were about 65 dead with 150 people injured.

·         The Ahmedabd city, the commercial hub of Gujarat state was bombed by a series of 21 bomb blasts that hit on July 26, 2008, within a span of 70 minutes, killing 56 people and injuring over 200 people.  The blasts occurred just a day after the blasts in Bangalore.

·         The Mumbai city was attacked by more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing attacks in different parts of the financial capital and largest city. The attacks began on November 26, 2008 and lasted till November 29, 2008, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308. Eight of the attacks occurred in the prominent places of South Mumbai, including the Oberoi Trident Hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotels, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, disclosed that the attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant organization, considered a terrorist organization by India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others. In the wake of the failure of the security system the Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned.

·         Recently there have been many bomb explosions in Assam and other parts of North-Eastern Indian cities.

There have been many technological disasters in India.

In 1979 the Koyna dam at Morvi in Gujarat collapsed killing 1,335 people.

Many gas leakages from the chemical plants have killed workers as well.  Some of the more well-known blasts are discussed below.

On December 4 and 6, 1985 a major leakage of oleum gas took place from Shriram Food and Fertilizers Industry, in the heart of the capital city of Delhi which resulted in the death of several persons. Following this, The Supreme Court of India established the principle of ‘strict and absolute liability’, making owners of hazardous plants strictly and absolutely liable for damages originating from their activities regardless of their fault.

The Bhopal chemical catastrophe is the world’s biggest industrial disaster to date. On the night of December 3, 1984 in the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, 40 tones of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked without any warning. The poisonous gas leakage killed 3,828 people immediately, injuring hundreds of thousands, incapacitating most of them for life. In addition, thousands of cattle, nearly poisoning water, polluting surrounding air for miles affected the breathing capacity of the people, and other long lasting disastrous effects (Gupta Forthcoming). According to Amnesty International (2004, 1) 22,000 people have died of their injuries. Union Carbide plant in Bhopal was the subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation incorporated in USA. The Government of India and the Union Carbide reached an out of court settlement for $490 million. Compensation claims of 1,029,517 people were registered, out of which 574,304 claims were awarded (Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department 2009). However, only a small portion of the compensation has been distributed to the victims due to legal and administrative procedures.

Mr. Warren Anderson, then CEO of Union Carbide, was declared absconder by the Bhopal Court since he did not appear in the court after signing a bail and promised to appear when summoned following his release after arrest. The Indian Government, the US Government, and INTERPOL were not able to find out his whereabouts for nineteen years. Journalists have found him living in Bridgehampton, New York and Florida. Nielsen (2006), a journalist, writes about actually having a face to face encounter with Warren Anderson, 84, at the Vero Beach, Florida home, but Anderson refused to give him an interview.

There have been many transportation accidents in India. The deadliest head-on mid-air collision of aircrafts in the world, the worst air disaster in India, and the fourth deadliest air disaster in the world, occurred over Charkhi Dadri, near Delhi on November 12, 1996, killing 349 people. The aircrafts involved were a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 passenger aircraft carrying 312 passengers and crew and an Ilyushin II-76TD belonging to Kazakhstan Airlines, carrying 37 passengers and crew.  The Saudi 747 had just taken off from New Delhi airport while the Il-76 was descending.  The Air Traffic Control (ATC) allowed the Saudi Jumbo to climb to 14,000 feet, and simultaneously, the IL-76 was allowed to descend to 15,000 feet. One of them, or both, did not stick to the prescribed height, and did not maintain the required vertical separation. The radar controller cautioned the Kazakh pilot that the Saudi Jumbo was approaching head on, but did not give a direct order on evasive action.  Another possible cause of the accident was the misunderstanding due to different languages problem. Both the planes collided at a speed of 500 km per hour and instantly caught fire.  There were no survivors (Gupta, Dangayach, and Bhardawaj 2007).

           

Following the head-on mid-air collision, the Civil Aviation Authority in India made it mandatory for all aircrafts flying in and out of India to be equipped with an Airborne Collision Avoidance System. This was the first time in the world that ACAS was made mandatory.

            On August 16, 1991 Indian Airlines flight IC-257 operating from Kolkatta to Imphal with Boeing 737 aircraft crashed in the jungles near Imphal killing all the 69 passengers and the crew. This author was waiting at the Imphal airport for going back to Kolkatta in the same plane. The Indian Airlines announced a flight delay, but accurate information was either not coming or not provided to the public. It was only after many hours of waiting that public information of the plane crash was given. The release of factual and timely information of the accident would have created good public relations.

            The Indian Railways is the world's largest railway system under a single management; with about 63,000-km route network that operates over 11,000 trains every day. There have been many railway accidents which could be considered as disasters, some of them are:

·         September 21, 1993, Seventy-one killed as Kota-Bina passenger train collides with a goods train near Chhabra in Rajasthan.

·         August 20, 1995, Three hundred and two killed as Delhi-bound Purushottam Express rams into the stationary Kalindi Express near Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh.

·         September 14, 1997, Eight-one killed as five bogies of the Ahmedabad-Howrah Express plunge into a river in Bilaspur district of Madhya Pradesh.

·         November 26, 1998, Over 200 people die as Jammu Tawi-Sealdah Express rams into three derailed bogies of Amritsar-bound Frontier Golden Temple Mail near Ludhiana.

·         August 2, 1999, Two hundred and eighty-six killed and 359 injured in a collision involving Awadh-Assam Express and Brahmaputra Mail at Gaisal in North Frontier Railway's Katihar division.

·         September 10, 2002, One hundred and twenty are killed when the Kolkata-New Delhi Rajdhani Express derails over a bridge in Bihar.

·         May 15, 2003, A burst stove caused a devastating fire that swept through a speeding passenger train in Punjab, killing 40 people and injuring more than 50.

·         June 22, 2003, In the first major accident on the Konkan Railway, 53 people, including three children, were killed and 25 injured when the engine and three coaches of the Karwar-Mumbai Central Holiday Special train derailed after crossing Vaibhavwadi station in Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra.

·         July 11, 2006, A series of bomb attacks strikes commuter trains in Mumbai, India, killing at least 200

·         February 13, 2009, Twelve carriages of the Coromandel Express derails soon after the train left Jajpur Road station near the city of Jajpur in the state of Orissa. Ironically, the accident occurred on the day of Railway Budget presentation when the then Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav boasted about increased safety measures at Indian Railways.

Like other disasters, India also has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of road accident deaths in the world. According to the Secretary of Road Transport, Government of India, nearly 105,000 people die in road accidents every year in India, and it is the highest in the world (Brahm Dutt 2007). This is despite the fact that India has very low number of vehicles for a given population compared to many of the countries. There are many reasons.  Among them are the non-enforcement of laws, lack of safety conscience, poor road conditions, poorly maintained vehicles, and overcrowding. In addition, emergency medical facilities for the road accidents, particularly outside the cities were lacking.

As can be seen, India has had more than its share of disasters. In the decade from1990-2000, an average of about 4,344 people lost their lives and about 30 million people were affected by disasters every year. The major natural disaster in 2008 in India was floods. There were 1,808 deaths in 2008 in India due to natural disasters, the third largest number of death in any country (after China and Myanmar). The number of people affected due to natural disasters in 2008 were 14 million, second highest after China. “The loss in terms of private, community and public assets has been astronomical” (National Disaster Management Division 2004, 3).